Islam dan wanita: memilih untuk jilbab dan paradoks.

NEAR THE VERY heart of a question Americans have been askingthemselves since September 11, 2001--"Why do they hateush"--lies the question of how different societies treat theirwomen. Americans by now seem bored and faintly embarrassed when feministstories make the headlines. Who wants to hear about chauvinism at astodgy American golf course when most of the meaningful barriers tofemale achievement in the United States have already been scaledh Yet asroutine as the self-assertion of women is here, in other parts of theworld it may be the most contentious issue of all.In Middle Eastern and other Muslim countries--where adherents of
extreme variants of Islam try to intimidate peaceful Muslim
majorities--antipathy toward the West revolves around sex and gender
every bit as much as it revolves around "globalization" or the
exploitation of poor countries by rich ones or infidel soldiers
quartered on sacred lands. The dogma purveyed by the Taliban of
Afghanistan, Jemaa Islamiya in Southeast Asia, and Hamas in the West
Bank and Gaza, among others, would encourage polygamy; lower the age of
marriage for girls (the mullahs who have ruled Iran since 1979 made
girls legally marriageable beginning at age nine); require women to
cover themselves in public; deny women marriage, divorce, child custody,
and inheritance rights equal...